On June 1, less than three weeks after a new government was finally allowed to take office in Catalonia, the Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy‘s People’s Party (PP) -- which had headed the central state’s harsh repression of Catalan self-determination -- was defeated in a parliamentary no-confidence vote prompted by a High Court conviction of leading PP officials in a public contracts corruption case.

The vote, initiated by the Spanish social-democratic PSOE, was supported by the left party Unidos Podemos and Catalan and Basque nationalist parties in the Spanish parliament. PSOE federal secretary Pedro Sánchez became Spain’s new prime minister.

These events open a new phase in the Spanish state’s ongoing institutional, social-economic... and national-territorial crises, and present the left forces in both Catalonia and Spain with some major challenges.